


Where we belong

by jperalta



Category: Prodigal Son (TV 2019)
Genre: Electroconvulsive Therapy, Hallucinations, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, Suicidal Thoughts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-11
Updated: 2020-03-15
Packaged: 2021-02-23 09:03:31
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,201
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23108944
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jperalta/pseuds/jperalta
Summary: The "Incident" from 1x12 where Malcolm almost electrocutes himself, but this time Dani busts through the door before he can do it and tries to calm him down afterwards. Written to be more of a suicide attempt because, well, I don't know.
Comments: 2
Kudos: 92





	1. Chapter 1

_ “You asked for my help. You knew I couldn’t say no, and you brought them all back into my life. You did that - you started this!"  
_ _ “Get the hell out of my precinct.” _

* * *

“Gil, no -” But the door had closed, and Gil was gone. Malcolm felt a horrible sadness burning in his chest and hated himself more than usual. Why would he say that? Why would he yell at someone who loved him, who helped him many times, who treated him like - well, like a father should treat his son. He felt anger and regret burning in his fingers and felt an urge to claw at his skin, but he resisted. 

Then Malcolm saw him - his younger self, dead, right in the same room. He knew it wasn’t real. He knew there was no way it could be real, but there the boy stood, seemingly clear as day.  _ He tried to kill us… _ He could hear the voices mixing together in his head, like a loud static that he couldn’t get rid of. He needed to be alone. He needed to get rid of it - all of it - and he could only think of one way. 

He knew Dani was watching him, could sense her eyes on him, and he moved into the room with the ECT machine and quickly closed and locked the door behind him. Almost immediately, he could hear her pounding on the door, saying his name, begging him to open the door, but he couldn’t. He needed it to stop. He put his hands on the door and felt them form into fists, and he almost fainted right there listening to Dani plead with him, but he couldn’t stop. He stumbled over to the machine, plugged it in, and turned the electricity up as far as it could go. He didn’t care if it killed him; he would have preferred it. The thought of a dark silence was incredibly tempting, and he held the handles in his hands, already feeling like electricity was pulsing through his mind as he couldn’t get the image of his younger self out of his head. It was like he could hear another voice in his head, his own or his father’s, urging him to do it, to get it all done with. There were only these moments now, and he wanted them over as soon as possible. He gripped the handles tighter, pulled them closer, prepared for it all to end while the electricity buzzed in his ears.

There was a change in the atmosphere and suddenly he felt himself falling. Was this it? Was he finally dying? But he realized that Dani had managed to get into the room and, lunging towards him, had knocked him out of the chair and onto the ground as the machine faded from his grasp.  _ No _ , he whispered as he fell against the wall, Dani nearly on top of him, trying to pull him out of it.

“Bright, what the fuck were you going to do?” She yelled as he saw the images disappearing in his mind, only to return again later. He started to panic. It had to be over. The pounding in his chest increased and he saw the handles dangling from the table, charged and ready to use. He struggled against Dani’s grasp to get to them, but her hold was firm. She reached over to her side, ripped the cord out of the outlet, and he heard the electricity fade away. He wanted to fade with it.

“Dani,” he panted, tears piling in his eyes and beginning to spill over. She had to understand - had to know that he couldn’t keep doing this. “Please, just let me…” his voice faded as he further lost his breath from panicking and trying to struggle against her, his legs thrashing on the ground as he tried to push himself off the wall.

“Let you what?” She asked firmly, furiously. “Let you kill yourself? Is that what you want?” She was yelling, but he knew she was scared. Everyone was always so scared around him and he just wanted it to stop, just wanted the silence, the nothingness. He felt absolutely horrible. “If you think I’m going to let you do that you can just stop struggling now because it’s not going to happen.” Her voice was shaky but remained firm. Malcolm couldn’t bear to let himself look at her and see the concern and the anger in her face, so he hung his head down, arms pinned against the wall, and let himself sob.

“I don’t know what to do,” he muttered, letting his body fall limp as he gave up fighting against her. His arms dropped around her neck and she pulled him tighter. “I want it to stop. I want it gone,” he cried, knowing she didn’t fully understand what he was talking about. But it didn’t matter - she just held him tighter, squeezed him so he’d know she was there, protecting him. 

“I know, I know,” Dani said gently, trying not to show that she was a blink away from tears herself. She clasped her hands around his back as he stared at the handles ahead, no longer full of electricity, slung over the chair, useless, and he felt the same sadness throbbing through his body, taking over every part of him. Dani rubbed her thumbs on his back and he tried to lean into the touch, tried to let it sooth him, but it felt so difficult to do when he had been so close to death and had had it denied to him yet again. “Malcolm, you have to try to breath.” It felt impossible. She moved a hand and placed it on his heart, could feel it pounding away like the world was about to end. “Breathe,” she said, through her own tears and frustration now. Her hand on his chest felt nice, and he tried to focus on her fingers, tried to force himself to imagine a tomorrow, but it was all too much and he felt himself slipping. Dani squeezed his shoulder with her other hand in an attempt to steady him. “Stay with me, Bright, please.” He let himself look at her, and thought if he could only see her from then on, maybe everything could be okay. But the pang of panic and nausea ran through him again, and he let himself lose consciousness as he fully fell to the floor.


	2. Chapter 2

About twenty minutes later, Malcolm awoke to find himself on a couch in a spare room somewhere in the precinct. When he tried to sit up, he found that he was extremely dizzy.

“Hey, hey,” Dani said as she came over from the corner and helped Malcolm sit up straight. She sat next to him and pulled over a glass of water from a table nearby. “When you’re ready.”

He nodded slightly. He couldn’t imagine putting anything into his stomach right now as it felt that it was twisting into itself inside of him. A burst of nausea welled up within him and he grabbed at his stomach. 

“You’re going to be okay,” Dani whispered as she reached towards Malcolm’s leg and squeezed his thigh. 

He stared at her hand, desperately trying to remember that human contact could be good, but he couldn’t stop shaking.

“Should I not--” She started to pull away.

“No,” he said quickly as he reached out to grab her hand in his own. “Please, it’s… it’s good.” He had felt so starved of good feeling for so long, starved of friendship and kindness, soft touches and well-meaning glances. He looked at Dani and knew she was his friend, and the thought made him feel choked up and a warmth in his chest that he couldn’t explain. They held hands for a moment, Dani rubbing her thumb on the outside of Malcolm’s hand and squeezing with just the right amount of pressure. He tried to focus on just her touch as he took in heavy breaths. After a bit of time, he realized he had been crying. He wiped the tears away with his free hand, trying to do so before Dani noticed, but she already had.

“Do you want to… talk about…”

He struggled as he tried to regain his breath. “I’m sorry,” he stammered out. “You’re just… you’re being so nice and I… I’m not… not used to it.” More tears came out and he frantically pushed them away. He saw Dani’s brows furrow together and it looked like she was trying to hold back her own tears.

“Malcolm…” she said sympathetically as she held his hand tighter. She reached a hand around his shoulder and pulled him close. He drew his legs up to the couch, curling himself into a small ball, and leaned his weight against her as he wrapped his other arm around her waist and put his head on her thigh. She was warm and her hands felt softer than anything he’d ever touched. Again he thought if he could only always be like this, he would be okay. Here with his friend - it could be okay.

Dani ran a hand through Malcolm’s hair and Malcolm continued to quiver beneath her as she did. She looked around, desperate to help him, and her eyes landed on a tattered blanket draped over the couch. She pulled it down and wrapped it around him, tucking the edges underneath his sides as she continued scratching his head. 

He took in a deep breath and let it out as slowly as he could manage, trying to remember what breathing right felt like. The oxygen felt cold going in and he shuddered as he let go. He felt Dani’s grip on him tighten and he wished he could burrow himself into her like this forever. More tears fell from his eyes and onto her pants. He saw the drops dissipate and felt guilty, but tried to remember that Dani was his friend, that she wasn’t going to hurt him. Her fingers felt nice on his scalp and he tried to give himself over to the good feeling. 

“Malcolm,” she began, choking on her words as she started. “You know that… that we love you, right?” She stared at an empty space on the wall as she spoke, and she could feel more tears falling onto her pants. “Me, Gil, even JT. Your sister, your mom - we love you.”

Malcolm nodded into her thigh. He wanted to stop crying but he couldn’t. Why couldn’t he stop crying? Would he feel this broken forever? “I know,” he whispered, hardly audible. He wasn’t sure that he did know, but he felt like he had to say it anyway. What he wondered was how anyone could love him, how anyone, after everything he has put people through, could still care for him, still want him to be okay. 

“And if…” Dani continued, her fingers stopping midway through a stroke on his head as she reached up to push a tear away before it fell towards him. “If anything happened to you, if you were to… to…” She couldn’t bring herself to say it - couldn’t bring herself to say _if you ended up killing yourself_. But she didn’t have to say it. He knew exactly what she meant, and again he felt terrible - terrible for worrying everyone. But it was so hard to believe he was worth worrying over when he couldn’t understand how anyone could care for him in the first place. He scrunched up his face and buried it into his arm. He felt her scratch his head again. “We’d miss you.”

Malcolm tried to gather himself, tried to stop choking on his breath long enough to speak. Why couldn’t he do this? Why couldn’t he just calm down? His hands balled up. “I know,” he said quietly. “When that… when I get like that, I’m not thinking clearly. You need to know that.”

She nodded. “I do - I can understand that.” 

“So I have that thought and I… I don’t really think. I just… know that that moment needs to change, and that was…” His hands tightened more and he swore he could feel electricity pumping through his brain. “That’s all I can think of.” He pushed himself up and away from her, hugging his knees to his chest. “I’m sorry.” They sat in silence for a moment, then he reached out to grab her hand again. “I really am sorry.”

She squeezed his hand in her own. “You don’t have to be sorry, Malcolm. I just wish I could do something.” She flipped her hair out of her eyes. “What if, if there’s a next time, when you feel like… like doing that, you called me instead.”

Malcolm looked up and over at her. “I could do that?” He asked, slightly astonished.

“Of course,” she sounded almost upset that he had sounded so surprised. “We’re friends. You can call me anytime.”

“Friends,” Malcolm whispered back to himself, then stared blankly ahead. 

“You should know that by now,” Dani teased.

Malcolm let a small smile out of the left side of his mouth. “I guess I just needed reminding.”


End file.
